In January 2001 the coalition between the Guinea-Bissau Resistance–Bah Fatah Movement and the Party for Social Renewal collapsed. A period of uncertainty followed until Pres. Kumba Ialá appointed Faustino Imbali the new prime minister. The new government soon ran into trouble, however, when $15 million disappeared from the treasury, and the opposition called for its resignation.After inquiries into the matter by Imbali and the National People’s Assembly proved fruitless and the arrest of two Ministry of Finance employees by the attorney general’s office outraged a parliamentary commission—which charged that the arrests would protect the government by preventing officials with information from appearing before the commission—calls for the government’s resignation mounted, and its credibility eroded. On December 9 Imbali was fired, and the following day Interior Minister Alamara Nhassé was appointed the new prime minister.

President Ialá was roundly criticized for suspending the activities of the Ahmadiyya Islamic group and deporting its leaders. He claimed that the Ahmadiyya was destabilizing the country’s Muslim community, almost half the population. A Bissau court declared his decision unconstitutional, and both the judiciary and the parliament declared unconstitutional Ialá’s dismissal of four Supreme Court judges and its president and the appointment of new ones.In August President Ialá dismissed Attorney General Rui Sanha and replaced him with former prime minister Caetano N’Tchama, who began threatening journalists from a private radio station. Meanwhile, public servants’ salaries were not paid. An opposition forum warned that stability was threatened and demanded that municipal elections be held by March 2002. A rumour that Ialá wanted to replace Armed Forces Chief of Staff Verissimo Correia Seabra with Umberto Gomis led some officers to threaten war if Ialá carried out this plan.